drednm
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Posts posted by drednm
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They should hold off and present her award during the regular awards ceremony so she doesn't miss her big moment.
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I think whoever wrote the intro to A Lady of Chance screwed up. It was The Trial of Mary Dugan which was the first part-soudy for Norma Shearer, not Lady as she/he has had Mr. Osborne say. A Lady of Chance was all silent. And it was The Last of Mrs. Cheyney which was the first all-soundy she made.
The thing I wonder is that Robert Osborne, with his encyclopedic knowledge of studio-era movies, didn't catch that error.
TCM was wrong, but The Trial of Mary Dugan was MGM's first full talkie drama. I don't think Shearer appeared in any sient films that had "talking sequences" as most other MGM stars did. Neither did Marion Davies or Greta Garbo.
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And is it School Daze that features that fabulous music video "I Don't Wanna Be Alone Tonight" with Trisha Campbell and Jasmine Guy (with Paula Brown and Angela Ali)? Hypnotic.
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Debbie Reynolds will be honored with this year's Jean Hershold Award.
Gena Rowlands and Spike Lee will be honored for their Career Achievement.
Reynolds should have won an Oscar for The Unsinkable Molly Brown and Rowlands should have won an Oscar for Gloria or A Woman Under the Influence.
Lee's high point was the controversial Do the Right Thing.
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I had not heard this news. About time the Academy recognized Debbie Reynolds!
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Ann Blyth has a lovely soprano voice which is showcased in three movies of varying quality:
"The Student Prince" (1953)--Ann Blyth and Edmond Purdom lip-synching to Mario Lanza's voice.
"Rose-Marie" (1954)--Ann Blyth, Howard Keel, & Fernando Lamas (a baritone), in one of the last movies choreographed by Busby Berkeley.
"Kismet" (1955)--Ann Blyth's, Howard Keel's, & Dolores Grey's singing carries the film despite director Vincente Minnelli's disinterest (he was busy planning his next film, 1956's"Lust For Life". MGM had told him he directed Kismet, or no LFL. One thinks Minnelli actively tried to sabotage "Kismet". Just one minor example; Blyth is required to warble "Baubles, Bangles, and Beads" while looking rapturously at some nauseating green fabrics.). The music & choreoography (sp?) saves the film.
The thing about Kismet is that there are so many familiar songs in it ... for those of us who were kids in the 1950s. Beautiful music, with the highlight being Dolores Gray belting out "Bagdad." Ann Blyth is very good and sings 3 of the hits songs.
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I haven't seen Ann Blyth in too many films (but would like to), but I really enjoyed what is probably her most memorable role--Veda in Mildred Pierce. I thought Blyth was just as good as Crawford in this film. She was excellent as the nasty, vindictive, spoiled daughter of Crawford. I loved her character even though Veda was an awful person.
It looks like The Student Prince will be airing on Nov 8 and The Helen Morgan Story on January 26. I love torch singers, so I'll definitely be checking out 'Helen Morgan.'
A truly remarkable performance from a 16-year-old actress with ony 4 fluff movies and a Broadway play under her belt.
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I agree.... I'm so surprised she was so delightful in comedies and could also be so ROTTEN in other parts. Quite an underrated actress.
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Watched The Helen Morgan Story story the other night. Ann Blyth deserved as Oscar nomination.
Here's an article on Ann Blyth:
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I rewatched The Quiet Man (1952) last night. This film seems to capture the essence of Maureen O'Hara better than most. She's a fiery and proud Irish woman who stands up for herself and for her own. She knows her place in the world and doesn't yearn for another life. Marvelous film, and O'Hara is perfect in it as Mary Kate.
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She should have earned an Oscar nomination for The Quiet Man. O'Hara was a marvelous blend of beauty, humor, and high spirits and all her films.
She made 2 minor British films before being discovered by Charles Laughton.
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Another of the greats gone.... RIP.
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Thanks for the great and highly informative writeup, dreadnm. How frustrating this news will be for silent buffs.
I realize that TCM is hurting for money these days but there was a period in which they would premiere a silent (each January, I believe) with a new musical soundtrack, the composer decided by a TCM contest. That was great while it lasted. One of the films was The Show, with John Gilbert. I've been missing that contest and those silent restorations for a few years now.
Yes TCM did away with the "young composer" contest. I can't imagine how much they spent on that. TCM did buy my ENCHANTMENT (1921) project and aired it November 2014. But that was due to a series of lucky breaks and was a completely done deal. The film had already been restored by Library of Congress. I bought a HD copy of the film via a Kickstarter campaign. I used a local film archive to assemble and edit (still had the "reel 2" signs) the huge HD files (too big for my computer), and I was lucky that a noted composer already had a score for the film (!!) from a festival showing 20 years before. All the elements fell into place, so that it was complete when TCM bought the project.
My next project was more usual. THE RESTLESS SEX (1920) had not been restored by LOC because there were sections of the preserved film that were out of order. The copy was good for a non-restored film. Another Kickstarter campaign paid for the film and a commissioned score. I did all the editing (reel 2 signs, decomp around the intertitles which is common, and re-sequenced the final reel so it made sense. I also had to add a "telegram" omitted from the copy which explained one character's fate. From this project I could easily see how much work goes into "restoring" a typical silent film. Luckily I'm retired so I didn't mind spending hours on the project. I'm not a film professional in any sense of the word, but the final version came out nicely and another Marion Davies film is "out there."
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I hope drednm responds to you on this. I believe he mentioned before that UCLA is in possession of several films at least that are not available to the public. Like the Academy Award nominee The Noose (1928).
I'm relaying third hand information so again, I hope he can enlighten us a bit more.
The thing is that the archives like UCLA, Eastman House, etc are not in the business of making/releasing DVDs. So to me it's a sort of Pyrrhic victory to have them preserved/restored and then maybe trot them out here and there for festivals and that's it. It's amazing how many silents are archived, but yes the LA Times article is correct about how many are gone forever. Generally speaking, when a film has been preserved (rather than restored), it's copied as is, so any mistakes (like reels out of order) are just carried forward.
Archived silents have no music tracks and commissioning a score is rather expensive. So these silents will never be shown on TCM but may be shown at festivals with live music.
Most archived silents have not been restored, another expensive step. Most have probably at least been transferred to safety stock but have not been digitized (DVD), yet another expensive step.
Probably a huge number of archived silents are incomplete or are in such bad shape nothing can be done for them with our present technology.
Then we get to those films that are not public domain and are still under copyright. Probably all of the MGM silents fall under this banner. So only the copyright holder can do anything with these no matter what shape they are in. Warners has been putting out lots of films in its library (includes MGM films) but the silents have not been a major concern for reason listed above.
Many silents do not boast stars familiar to the public so there's basically no market for them. These are likely doomed to sit on shelves forever. Even my 3 Marion Davies projects have failed to get any interest from the big DVD companies.....
Foreign archives. Where to start. They hold MANY US silents which may never see the light of day. I recently confirmed a French archive has RICHARD THE LION-HEARTED (1923) starring Wallace Beery but they have no plans to do anything with it. The Alice White silent SHOW GIRL has recently been found in an Italian archive and Warners is apparently getting that one because the Vitaphone sound disk survives (so no composer needed). I confirmed the Bessie Love silent SALLY OF THE SCANDALS survives in a Belgian archive. There are also major archives in Russia, Chechoslovakia, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, England (BFI), and so on. Some of the US silents they hold have intertitles in Euro languages so that adds ANOTHER job of work for a translator plus the films would have to be edited to insert English titles.....
and on it goes.....
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It's a nice dream, though.
The sad thing is that so many silents have been saved/preserved/restored but still sit in archives. Most archives will NOT sell copies of silent films even if they are public domain, so there's virtually no chance they'll ever have scores written for them and get released on DVD. Oh well.....
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If TCM could find some lost (okay, maybe that is asking for the impossible) or, at least, rare films of any of these great silent stars, it would be even more fantastic. And this is something that I would gladly appreciation whether they were SOTM or not.
I'll gladly settle for a restoration of some of the films, as well. Gilbert's Man, Woman and Sin, for example, or Gish's La Boheme totally restored, without those soft washed out sections it now has when shown on the station.
To be fair, TCM did do a "Salute to Silent Stars" as SOTM November 2104 when they debuted Marion Davies' Enchantment along with a lot of other silent greats. Most of the great silent stars in my list don't have enough existing films for a SOTM salute and many of those that do exist don't have music tracks, are incomplete, or are locked away in archives.
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for any month
GLORIA SWANSON
JOHN GILBERT
MARION DAVIES
RICHARD BARTHELMESS
MARY PICKFORD
WILLIAM HAINES
LILLIAN and DOROTHY GISH
DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS
NORMA and CONSTANCE TALMADGE
CHARLIE CHAPLIN
BETTY COMPSON
BUSTER KEATON
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I never laughed so much as when Laugh-In was on. It probably wouldn't seem so funny now. I even had the cast album with all the little wall cutouts where the regulars were hiding. Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin were the breakout stars but I remember so well most of the others like Judy Carne, Ruth Buzzi, Arte Johnson, Alan Sues, Joanne Whorley (I saw her in "The Pirates of Penzance" in Los Angeles in 1981), Eileen Brennan, Roddy Maude-Roxby, Barbara Sharma. The ones I liked least were Dick Martin and Dan Rowan. Anyway, "What's the News Across the Nation?"
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"Love on a Rooftop" was one of her TV series and she had a small part in the Julie Andrews film, The Americanization of Emily. She also starred on Broadway in "The Boyfriend" with Sandy Duncan.
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Milner starred in "Route 66" and "Adam-12."
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The LAUGH IN star dead at 76.
It won't let me edit the headline
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All movies that have ever been released for public viewing should automatically become public domain after 50 years - no exceptions.
If I were able to create laws, that's one that I would.
And, if you agreed to let any song or music of which you hold the rights to be used in any publicly-exhibited movie, you've agreed to a permanent situation - no matter the format in which the movie may be manufactured.
Don't you wish I was in charge?
Even now, when a composer scores a film and is paid for it, he generally retains the copyright and only licenses the filmmaker to use the music for X amount of time to include TV, DVD etc..... That's one of the screwy things that can mess up copyrights and keep films out of the public domain. If the composer retains the copyright, it's something to can leave to his descendants .... who had nothing to do with its creation.
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Many of the films are these lists are available from private collectors. If you're waiting for a TCM airing or an official DVD release, you'll be waiting for nothing. Most of these titles are public domain or have not been restored so they are not "good enough" for business purposes. Others have legal issues that would prevent work done on them but copies exist.
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Anybody know? No response to emails.....
Debbie Reynolds
in General Discussions
Posted
She's rumored to have a movie in the works so maybe she's getting into shape. It's called Big Finish. Hope she gets to appear at the regular awards show in March or whenever they have it now....